Meet Our October Scholarship Winner: Brandon!

Meet October’s lucky $1000 scholarship winner, Brandon!
As a Senior in high school, Brandon is busy with school, college apps and spending quality time with his friends.
Read on to get to know this unique, motivated and big-hearted young man.

CM: What do you like to do in your free time?Brandon: I love biking around my town. I love exploring new places, especially the forest paths that wind through my neighborhood. I write a lot: poetry, short stories, raps and occasionally a song. Mostly though I just like hanging out with friends. We go on adventures to the local Asian market and eat noodles, or break out into improvised acapella songs.”

CM: Are you involved in any after-school activities?Brandon: Oh plenty. I’m a tutor for National Honor Society, I’m in Creative Writing Club, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Key Club, the UNICEF club, I’m president and founder of my school’s Forum club (it’s where we discuss and learn about social and political issues), and secretary of the Bible Club.

CM: Why do you want to go to college?Brandon: My parents are refugees from Vietnam where this kind of opportunity isn’t common. I want to honor the sacrifices and struggles that they had to go through to give me and my sister this chance. Also, college is a path to a better future. I want to make enough money to support my parents and my sister. Hopefully, I’ll make a lot of money and be able to donate much of the surplus to charity.

CM: What do you hope to study in college?Brandon: I’m still not totally sure. I’m deciding between Engineering or Pharmacy. Engineering is a difficult field to get into but I’ve always been amazed by the fantastic and creative designs that engineers come up with, like beautiful neighborhoods for former-slum dwellers that are both gorgeous as well as affordable, or skyscrapers that house farms, saving acres of land and providing organic food for locals. On the other hand, my mom really wants me to be a pharmacist. The pay is high, the demand is high, and it seems like an easy job.

CM: What is your dream job?Brandon: Not really sure. I like working with people and helping others. Social work, diplomacy, and social issues interest me, as well as management. I’ve thought about Urban Planning, mostly because I really liked playing SimCity 4 as a kid, but I don’t think it’d be like the game. Teaching would be cool too, specifically history. Hopefully, when I’m older I can go back to school and get a teaching degree in history.

CM: What is your favorite part about the site?Brandon: I really like the information about different colleges that you have. Especially the comparison tool. It makes my life so much easier. Before I came to this site I had to search for every piece of information about a college, write it down, then move on to another college to write down the information for that college. The tool makes it so much easier to see the tuition cost and on-campus life as well.